Very Large amount of tuneins during certian songs.

[axisdj]

Hello there,

 

I have been noticing a HUGE amount of 'winamp 5.09' clients tuning in on certain songs and then tuning out, sometimes over 1000 listeners/clients.

 

I have been told it is a stream ripper, but how could I find out which one and get removed from the list.

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks

[Tombie]

From my understanding, there are a couple of things that you could do such as crossfade all of your songs, play ID liners in between songs, talk over the intro of the songs. But other than that, it sounds like a losing battle.

[dotme]

Run Shoutcast?

 

1) Issue a SUBNET ban to this IP range: 207.244.72.0-255 (Ban Whole Subnet option)

2) Now search your listener page for connections that are from 207.244.72 - When you find them, kick them.

 

This will solve your problem for the time being.

[axisdj]

Hello,

 

Thanks for the replies. I do crossfades on ALL songs and play station ID in Between some. Almost none of my ip's are from the 207.244.72 subnet, they are all different ip's from all over the world.

 

Thanks

[andhow]

Run Shoutcast?

 

1) Issue a SUBNET ban to this IP range: 207.244.72.0-255 (Ban Whole Subnet option)

2) Now search your listener page for connections that are from 207.244.72 - When you find them, kick them.

 

This will solve your problem for the time being.

 

I had to do the same thing a couple of weeks ago. Banning this subnet stopped the connections from coming back. From my research there was one IP address that was periodically connecting and staying connected for some time, then occasionally I would get the flood that Axis described. I traced the main IP address that was staying connected as one for a defunct promotional website. When I blocked that IP address, the next one in the subnet would connect, etc. So blocking the whole subnet will stop this from occurring. Once you block the subnet you should not get any more connections from the range.

[dotme]

Almost none of my ip's are from the 207.244.72 subnet, they are all different ip's from all over the world...

 

Understood. You're missing the point. All those IPs all over the world are being TOLD when to connect to your stream by a system running on the subnet I mentioned above. In short, users download free software and install it on their PC. They create a "wishlist" of songs they would like to - for lack of a better word - steal.

 

The central system monitors thousands of stations. When a song plays that is on someone's wishlist, their PC software connects to your server and rips it. When the song ends, they disconnect. Popular songs could see hundreds of simultaneous connections from all over the world.

 

By banning the subnet above, you're preventing that command and control system from monitoring your server. So now it can't tell the end user software to connect to you and grab tracks. Make sense now? Ban the subnet, and you kill their system - as far as your station is concerned anyway...

[axisdj]

Hello Guys,

 

Thank you very much for the explanation, it makes sense now, will do as recommended.

 

Thanks@!

[voodoohippie]

The Winamp forums talk about these control center IP's for the stream ripper that is doing exactly the same thing to a lot of Shoutcast stations. The IP is comming out of Salt Lake City and is different than the one reported here although there seems to be a few more IP's reported over there.

 

If your automation software allows you to type in metadata while Live you could enter some metadata 30 seconds before the song ends which may deter people from stealing all your music and DDOSing your station. Here is how I do it using a said automation program that allows this:

 

30-50 seconds before the end of the song I type ID - mysite and press send in my software. When Live I do this for almost every song and don't use talk over or anything like this since I'm an Album Rock station that will mimic the same attitude and feel of a Real album Rock station but don't want to get attacked by this ripper. The real listeners are not effected as they simply see my site show up in their player or any other message I decide to type such is ID - Android Users and then wait another 5 seconds and finish typing how to receive my station on a Smartphone. You can't do this obviously at the beginning due to royalty reporting but I am sure they won't cry about 30-50 seconds so you can knock off a few bad apples.

 

Hope this will work for you.